Video-Game Play Induces Plasticity in the Visual System of Adults with Amblyopia

Figure 2

Improved visual acuity (VA) with video-game experience.

(A) Action video game. Color coding is used throughout the figures to represent the type of amblyopia. Red, strabismic; green, anisometropic; Blue, mixed (strabismic & anisometropic); dark purple, mixed (strabismic & deprivation). Error bars: one s.e.m. (here and in all subsequent figures). (B) Non-action video game. In this experiment, participants were required to play a non-action video game (“chess” symbol: SIM) in the first 40 h and an action video game (“gun” symbol: MOH) in the second 40 h. Note that given the small sample size, the fitting curve is provided here for reference. (C) Control experiment. Another group of participants was required to first undertake occlusion therapy (OT, “patch” symbol) for 20 h, and then continue to the video-game phase (“joypad” symbol: MOH or SIM). Note that SB3 was not available to finish the complete course of video-game training. (D) Summary of acuity data. (Top left) A schematic logMAR letter chart. Each 0.1 logMAR represents 1 letter-line. Parentheses: Snellen acuity. (Top right) The visual acuity data from panels a–c are pooled together to calculate the mean data. (Bottom left) Percent improvement is replotted as a function of baseline visual acuity. Solid symbols: crowded acuity. Open symbols: uncrowded acuity. (Bottom right) Effect of video-game experience on visual crowding. Shaded area: decreased visual crowding.